Please watch and spread around. They are identical, except for the endings. Each is less than two minutes long! Please choose one and send it to your Eureka contacts, share on your social media, tweet about them, ‘like’ them on your you tube channel!

We will have a table set up about the Eureka Fair Wage Act / Measure R all day at the Pride festival. Dedicated Fair Wage folk, Sarah Torres, with her amazing voice and guitar skills, will perform her original songs on stage with BeTHIsBell. It will be a collaboration not to be missed! Both Sarah and Beth have consistently shared their music at the Fair Wage Cafes, Arts Alive, and many street concerts in support of the Fair Wage Act.

***FAIR WAGE CAFE

11th Fair Wage Cafe September 27, 2014

The Cafe is family-friendly, community building, relaxing, and fun event. All free! A large buffet of delicious, nutritious food and sweets with coffee, tea, and juice; fabulous live local music; games for kids (plus a playground and a large grassy area for running around); guest speakers; space for informational tables about your projects or organizations; ways to help raise the minimum wage; and an open setting where you can be social or just eat, listen to the music, read the materials, relax.

If you need to register or know people who do, please call or email us. (707) 442-7465, info@fairwages.org We will bring you a registration form. It only takes a couple of minutes to fill out. We all can win this if we vote for higher wages.

We also have laminated window signs for your home, office, or vehicle.

***VOLUNTEER Volunteer any evening to help pass Measure R.(707) 442-7465, info@fairwages.org Knocking on doors and talking with Eureka residents continues every evening. Please find some time to join us for a couple of hours. We will do a short preparation and you will go out with an experienced person, so don’t worry if you’ve never done anything like this.Also, if you can help us put information into a spreadsheet, from your own home, that would be super helpful!***DAILY BANNER ACTION

Stand with the Fair Wage banner! We have a beautiful YES ON R banner that we can display every day to thousands of passers-by on Broadway. Don, one of the drafters of the Fair Wage Act (Measure R) and a proud Fair Wage Folk, needs one person every weekday to accompany him in sitting or standing with the banner at Wabash and Broadway. Please contact us if you would be willing to hold the professionally made banner (donated by Jim Signs) for two hours with Don. Don will provide transportation to and from the spot on Broadway. Guaranteed laughs with Don, too!

Help get the last money together for PARC rent! PARC has been the main organizing space/office for the Fair Wage Folks. PARC still needs $150 for September rent. Please donate if you can.parc.2truth.com click on “Give Now”

[This is a separate donation link, etc then The Fair Wage Folks. PARC does not have a state committee campaign number, just a bunch of grass roots!]

***LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Write a letter to the editor in support of Measure R. It would be good to see one every day in the Times-Standard and North Coast Journal. A letter does not need to be complicated- could simply say why you support Measure R.

Throughout history, women and men in the labor movement have struggled to gain power in an economy that often seems to work against them, placing profit over people. For the past hundred years, the United States has seen great strides in workers’ rights, from the formation of unions, the eight-hour workday, child labor laws, and the creation of a minimum wage. Despite these gains, there exists a growing population of working poor, people who work full-time jobs, yet are unable to meet their most basic needs, including housing, food, child care, health care, and transportation. As traditional tactics and union influence become less effective, workers and advocates of workers’ rights are creating new and innovative strategies, which are being implemented in movements for a living wage.

“The company website declares that “a job at Walmart opens the door to a better life” and “the chance to grow and build a career.” But interviews with 31 hourly workers and one former store manager reveal lives beset by paychecks too small to handle the bills, difficult to manage part-time schedules with hours subject to constant change, and little reason to hope for career advancement. Citing fear of losing their jobs, most spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The testimonials of these workers are confirmed by Walmart’s official compensation policy, an internal company document obtained by The Huffington Post, titled the “Field Non-Exempt Associate Pay Plan Fiscal Year 2013.” The plan details a rigid pay structure for hourly employees that makes it difficult for most to rise much beyond poverty-level wages.

Low-level workers typically start near minimum wage, and have the potential to earn raises of 20 to 40 cents an hour through incremental promotions. Flawless performance merits a 60 cent raise per year under the policy, regardless of how much time an employee has worked for the company. As a result, a “solid performer” who starts at Walmart as a cart pusher making $8 an hour and receives one promotion, about the average rate, can expect to make $10.60 after working at the company for 6 years.

The Walmart pay plan is organized around seven levels of job difficulty for hourly workers, called Position Pay Grades (PPGs), ranging from cart-pushers (Level 1) and cashiers (Level 3), to cake decorators (Level 4) and customer service managers (Level 6). Each subsequent pay grade offers 20 to 40 cents more than the previous level, according to the document. This means that the base rate of pay for a top hourly position at Walmart, like a check-out supervisor, is $1.70 more than that of the lowest paying job.”

update fri 11/16 Wal-Mart filed an unfair labor practice charge against the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, or UFCW, asking the National Labor Relations Board to halt what the retailer says are unlawful attempts to disrupt its business.